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Rep. gives 'Fluff' to A&F chief

By Andy Metzger STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE

Updated:
12/14/2012 10:03:35 AM EST

BOSTON -- After assembling a visual representation of what he sees as "fluff" or waste in a Patrick administration Cabinet office on Thursday, Rep. Dan Winslow (R-Norfolk) was asked to leave the office's lobby.

Winslow, who has sparred publicly on budget matters with Administration and Finance Secretary Jay Gonzalez, was asked to leave the State House office by Executive Office of Administration and Finance communications director Alex Zaroulis after he delivered tubs of the sugary sandwich spread Marshmallow Fluff along with a list of recommended cost-cutting proposals.

"We got kicked out," Winslow said in the hallway outside the office.

Republicans have balked at Gov. Deval Patrick's plans to bridge a $540 million mid-year budget deficit, which includes a $9 million cut to local aid. Another $225 million cut to state agencies will defund 700 positions, and Patrick is planning to draw $200 million out of state reserves to bridge the budget gap. Winslow said the governor's approach ignores other cost-savings and revenue generators.

"These are cost savings or non-tax revenue increases that don't affect core services. My view is that there's a significant number of such opportunities in the state budget," Winslow told the News Service.

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In earlier comments to the News Service, Winslow suggested that press secretaries are among the "fluff" that could be cut, but that proposal did not make it into his list of 10 cost-savers, beyond an admonition that "such decisions be weighed in favor of public safety" and with a recognition of a hiring freeze within the judiciary. None of Winslow's cost-cutting ideas include any specific proposals to lay off workers.

Winslow said that with the potential impact of the so-called "fiscal cliff" and costs associated with an unfolding criminal justice crisis in a state drug lab, the budget deficit could balloon.

"We may be ourselves in Massachusetts on the precipice of our own cliff, and so it's important that we consider all possible options, short of cutting local aid out of the gate," Winslow said. Those cuts are particularly devastating to small municipal budgets, Winslow said.

"I'm sure that there are savings at all levels of government," Winslow told the News Service earlier this week. He also said, "It's harder for towns, especially smaller towns, to pivot mid-year."

The 1 percent local aid reduction would require legislative approval.

By using different measures, Winslow and the administration have differed on how state employment levels have changed over the years. Gonzalez responded to Winslow's claims that employment had increased by saying, "He's just got his facts wrong." Winslow used a comptroller's report that showed full-time-equivalent employment increasing by more than 2,200 since 2007. That increase also includes employees of quasi-public agencies, such as the old Turnpike Authority, as well as county sheriff's employees who were taken into the state's employment rolls through reforms.

"Those were not new jobs," state budget director Michael Esmond told the News Service.

Winslow affixed his 10 cost-cutting ideas to holiday cards on 10 tubs of Fluff and arranged them into a pyramid in the the State House office before he, his aide, and two News Service reporters were asked to leave and the pyramid was disassembled.

"Read the letter. It's not a disrespectful letter in any way," Winslow said in the hallway.

Asked if the Fluff delivery might be taken as an insult, Winslow said, "This is a continuation of the dialogue from last week: Whether or not there's fluff in the state budget. My view is that there is."

After the pyramid was dismantled and the tubs were boxed up, there was an attempt to re-gift the Fluff. About two hours after Winslow's delivery, Gonzalez and Zaroulis brought the box of 10 tubs up to the News Service's room in the fourth floor press gallery.

"Rep. Winslow dropped off this box of fluff for me, and we eat healthier food at A&F. This is fattening and we're in lean times," Gonzalez told the News Service. "And while I'm proud of my record of having good relationships with legislators, nobody's ever brought me a gift before. So I'm dropping it off with you guys. I figure you at State House News could use it, and I'm really hoping that he didn't pay for it with taxpayer money."

Gonzalez, who announced his impending departure from state government about an hour after Winslow's gift package, said he had not read the proposals. "It's been a long day," Gonzalez said.

Both Winslow and Gonzalez are potential future candidates for statewide office.

The News Service brought to the Fluff back to Winslow, who said later that it had been gratefully received as a gift at the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans.

"I have a lot of respect for Gonzalez," Winslow said, adding that he had wished him well in the letter and that his departure would be a loss for the administration. Asked if the political theater led to a good dialogue, Gonzalez said, "Democracy should be spirited so we've accomplished that."

Winslow also scoffed at Gonzalez's notion that tax dollars might have been spent, saying, "Of course not. I'm a Republican. We walk the walk."

Asked about Gonzalez's assertion that the press secretary is a vital position because he doesn't have time to respond to media requests, Winslow said, "At the Cabinet level I think that the secretary has a good point. But throughout state government there are secretaries and assistant secretaries, and deputy-assistant secretaries for press, whose positions didn't exist even five or six years ago. So the level of transparency in state government certainly is a value and something we have to attend to, but we should do it in the most cost-effective way."

The ideas suggested by Winslow include: for the state to use collection agencies to go after people who owe the state money; to use brokers to find more affordable office space for state agencies; to reward state residents who come up with cost-saving measures; to reward state employees with bonuses for under-spending their budgets; task the Asset Management Board to work on revenue-generating proposals with entrepreneurs; use more temporary and part-time workers in non-public safety positions to save on overtime costs; use the judicial branch, which has reduced its personnel by 936 full-time-equivalent employees since 2008, as a model; cap electronic benefit transfer cards' cash withdrawals at 40 percent of monthly allowances; remove all subsidies for state college costs for Massachusetts students who are in the country illegally, meaning they would pay less than out-of-state students and more than the discounted in-state rate; allow state attorneys to reach settlements of more than $30,000 without approval of the chief legal counsel as long as the settlement discounts the original claim by more than 30 percent.

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